Vocational training ‘failing'
Vocational training programmes for rural workers in Vietnam have largely failed to help participants find work because of a lack of coordination with industry, a high-ranking congressman said.
Do Manh Hung, deputy chairman of the National Assembly's Social Affairs Committee, said that poor course quality left many workers unable to meet the requirements of companies after completing the courses.
The experience of training students in the northern province of Bac Ninh is instructive. Nearly 39,000 workers received vocational training from 2011 to 2014 at an expense of VND126 billion (US$5.7 million), but the courses were not suitable to meet real demand, Hung said.
For instance, a three-month embroidering course was too short for a career which requires meticulous skill, so after the course most trainees could only make simple products.
Some other trainees in the agricultural programme could not borrow enough capital after studying to pursue vegetable growing or fishing, Hung said.
The congressman said that a check by his committee showed that in some provinces, all of the workers in a village studied one career, or workers studied two or three careers within a single year.
Construction worker Nguyen Van Nam, from the northern province of Hoa Binh, said that he attended a training course on motorbike repairing. The course lasted only three months and allowed little time for practice so he did not remember much, he said.
He joined another course about breeding and animal health, but he didn't have any opportunity to apply the knowledge. Training should be integrated with company requirements so firms can hire trainees when they complete the course, he said.
Nam was one of many rural workers who completed the courses, but could not find any job related to their training, so they had to find work by themselves in a different field. He has worked as a builder in Hanoi during the past year.
Dao Van Tien, director of the Department of Lifelong Vocational Training under the Vietnam Directorate of Vocational Training, said that vocational training centres should sign contracts with enterprises about employing workers after training. The contracts should also include the expected salary of the workers.
Nguyen Thi Hoa, from Hanoi's Chuong My District, is taking a class on rattan weaving at the Phu Vinh Private Vocational Training Centre. She said she was confident she could find a job afterward because the centre has joined with a company exporting rattan products in the Phu Nghia Industrial Zone.
Tran Van Phung, deputy chairman of the Phu Nghia Commune People's Committee in Hanoi, said that some garment, shoes and construction enterprises in the zone employed a great number of workers who had completed training courses. The commune made sure there would be demand so all of the trainees had jobs after vocational training courses.